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Mangersta, Lewis
Their crumpled layers as old as the
continents, the sea stacks and cliffs
of the Outer Hebrides offer jagged
reminders of the forces that drove
Europe, North America, and Green-
land apart as the North Atlantic
began to open 60 million years ago.
for observation, the Romantic sensibility is
an inheritance from the 18th century, and the
Hebrides were among its touchstones. British
inventiveness had fueled a nascent industrial
revolution---and generated brutal levels of
noise, pollution, and crowding. For an increas-
ingly mechanized, urbanized world, nature be-
came a refuge, a place for contemplation and
inspiration with sublime power to transform
emotions as well as thoughts. "Every valley has
its battle, and every stream its song," declared
Sir Walter Scott, whose novels and poems gave
voice to wild Scotland. Even resolutely rational
Robert Jameson assured readers that he was
not "insensible to the emotions which natu-
rally arise from the retired and striking scenes
which o en burst upon me."